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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (401912)	5/2/2003 11:45:36 AM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 769670

SHAMEFUL.......only good thing is that it's warm....which is probably even harder for those from the cold countries CC

To: TigerPaw who wrote (401912)	5/2/2003 11:46:22 AM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 769670

Just another great day for the BUSH RECORD of FAILURE Report Finds Extreme Black Child Poverty on Rise Childrens Defense fund Thursday 1 May 2003 Tax Cuts for Rich Will Erode Safety Nets for Children Even Further WASHINGTON -- The number of Black children living in extreme poverty is at its highest level in 23 years, according to an analysis released today by the Children's Defense Fund. Despite several years of a booming economy, nearly one million Black children in 2001 lived in a family with an annual income of less than half the federal poverty level (disposable income below $7,064 for a family of three). The Bush Administration plans to dismantle Head Start, block grant Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, and slash and freeze crucial services designed to help these poorest children. Recent studies show overall poverty has declined among Black children, but fail to show the record-breaking increase in extreme poverty among these children. Today's analysis further shows that safety nets for the worst-off families are being eroded by Bush Administration policies, which cause fewer extremely poor children of all races to receive cash and in-kind assistance that could help these families. Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman said these numbers are clear indicators that, as a country, we must invest in children now instead of passing irresponsible tax breaks for the rich. "It is shameful that one million Black children are left behind in extreme poverty," said Edelman. "It is hard to be poor. It is harder to be an extremely poor Black child in America when our president who says we should Leave No Child Behind(r) is proposing massive new tax breaks for the richest Americans." The Bush Administration claims its plan to dismantle, eliminate, cut and freeze essential services for children to pay for massive new tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans will spur the economy. The most recent Economic Report of the president, which the president's own Council of Economic Advisers issued in February 2003, explicitly acknowledges that tax cuts are unlikely to pay for themselves -- let alone pay for investments in children and working families.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (401912)	5/2/2003 11:49:11 AM
From: CYBERKEN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

What REALLY bothers the left is that we are FINALLY locking up the right people...

To: TigerPaw who wrote (401912)	5/2/2003 11:51:16 AM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 769670

So nice to know that everyone KNOWS each other when the contracts get issues isn't it? Dept. Of Connections The Contractors by Jane Mayer The New Yorker 5 May 2003 Back when Americans were still debating whether there was just cause for a preemptive strike against Iraq, few arguments were scrutinized more closely than the Bush Administration's contention that there were covert links between Al Qaeda and Iraq. At the C.I.A., analysts pored over aerial satellite photographs. At the Treasury Department, experts sifted through financial records. At the National Security Agency, Arab-speaking linguists eavesdropped on phone conversations. But, even after Secretary of State Colin Powell put his credibility on the line, in a damning, dot-connecting speech before the United Nations last February, questions persisted about the solidity of the alleged links between Saddam and Osama. Now there is a new and demonstrable connection, but it is not the kind that the Bush Administration had in mind. In fact, it is more likely to fuel the speculations of conspiracy theorists than it is to put their fears to rest. It turns out that a money trail runs-albeit rather circuitously-from the lucrative business of rebuilding Iraq to the fortune behind Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden's estranged family, a sprawling, extraordinarily wealthy Saudi Arabian dynasty, is a substantial investor in a private equity firm founded by the Bechtel Group of San Francisco. Bechtel is also the global construction and engineering company to which the U.S. government recently awarded the first major multimillion-dollar contract to reconstruct war-ravaged Iraq. In a closed competitive bidding process, the United States Agency for International Development chose Bechtel to rebuild the major elements of Iraq's infrastructure, including its roads, railroads, airports, hospitals, and schools, and its water and electrical systems. In the first phase of the contract, the U.S. government will pay Bechtel nearly thirty-five million dollars, but experts say that the cost is likely to reach six hundred and eighty million during the next year and a half. When the contract was awarded, two weeks ago, the Administration did not mention that the bin Laden family has an ongoing relationship with Bechtel. The bin Ladens have a ten-million-dollar stake in the Fremont Group, a San Francisco-based company formerly called Bechtel Investments, which was until 1986 a subsidiary of Bechtel. The Fremont Group's Web site, which makes no mention of the bin Ladens, notes that "though now independent, Fremont enjoys a close relationship with Bechtel." A spokeswoman for the company confirmed that Fremont's "majority ownership is the Bechtel family." And a list of the corporate board of directors shows substantial overlap. Five of Fremont's eight directors are also directors of Bechtel. One Fremont director, Riley Bechtel, is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Bechtel Group, and is a member of the Bush Administration: he was appointed this year to serve on the President's Export Council. In addition, George Shultz, the Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration, serves as a director both of Fremont and of the Bechtel Group, where he once was president and still is listed as senior counsellor. Rick Kopf, the general counsel of the Fremont Group, which manages some eleven billion dollars in assets, confirms that the bin Laden family invested about ten million dollars in one of Fremont's private funds before September 11, 2001. He noted that the bin Laden family has not enlarged its stake since then, but he declined to provide additional details about its association with the firm. He also chose not to discuss the origin or the nature of the relationship between the bin Laden and Bechtel families, both of which made fortunes in huge construction projects in the Arab world. The Fremont Group evidently does not go in for connecting the dots. As Kopf said, "Ownership is private and is not disclosed." CC